On monitoring development indicators using high resolution satellite images

Abstract: We develop a machine learning based tool for accurate prediction of socio-economic indicators from daytime satellite imagery. The diverse set of indicators are often not intuitively related to observable features in satellite images, and are not even always well correlated with each other. Our predictive tool is more accurate than using night light as a proxy, and can be used to predict missing data, smooth out noise in surveys, monitor development progress of a region, and flag potential anomalies. Finally, we use predicted variables to do robustness analysis of a regression study of high rate of stunting in India.